Aloha, bitches! The boyfriend and I have just returned from a luxuriously lengthy leisure-time in Moku’āina o Hawai’i – specifically, the islands of Maui and Moloka’i. What will follow, over a course of weeks, is my travelogue. SPOILER ALERT: I survive to write this paragraph you’re reading.

Thursday. June 16, 2011.

Nothing makes me wistful for days gone by like traveling by plane. I’m old enough to remember a time when you could escape your reasonably comfortable seat for a small, smoking lounge and make small-talk with other passengers. Meals were included and expected, complimentary playing cards were practically forced on you, and bathrooms were more than one square inch larger than my skeleton.

Traveling by plane was a luxury, like taking a limo, pre-ordering a soufflé, or soaking in salt crystals made from blood diamonds. There was an implied dignity – it was something to look forward to: to be seated and be served.

Before the terrorists won.

Cut to: me and my boyfriend frantically racing to gut our backpacks and pockets of anything shiny and throwing them in large, grey tubs – Will my lip balm set off the alarm? Better throw it in, just in case…; stripping ourselves of shoes and spectacles, praying to a God that doesn’t exist we aren’t targeted to be put through the x-ray, knowing we’d refuse and have to succumb to the most unfulfilling massage imaginable; finally making it to our gate to find the two flights before us have been delayed since dawn, so the terminal is as absolutely packed with weary bodies, looking like some alternative concentration camp where people actually gained weight.

Sometimes I get the impression that our old friend Orenthal James "O. J." Simpson just wants to end up at the top of an old oil refinery like James Cagney in White Heat, screaming at the top of his Hall of Fame lungs “Look at me Ma! Top of the world!” Then boom … infinity and vapor … melted down like a Heisman Trophy.

David Huckabee, the eldest son of presidential candidate Mike Huckabee, made headlines when he was arrested in April for having a loaded Glock pistol in his carry-on bag at the Little Rock Airport. Yeah, but that’s nothing compared to the stunt he pulled as an 18 year old, when he was fired from his Boy Scout counseling job for torturing and killing a stray dog he caught at Camp Pioneer in Hatfield, Arizona. First he hung the dog by the neck, slit its throat, then stoned it to death.

You would think that the biggest story this year in sports would have been Michael Vick and his massive screw-up, but luckily for him we live in an era when athletes massively screw-up all the time.

I’m not trying to play the elitist-snob game here, but I’ve never seen an episode of American Idol … but shit, with characters like Jessica Sierra hanging around, I think I have to mend my ways and check this show out! But the first order of business, get Season Four from Netflix for a better look at this femme fatale.

So my back is almost healed. It’s probably at 70%, a passing grade to most, but I feel 100 times better than I felt just a few weeks ago. One of the things I could not do, besides sit or stand for long periods of time, was go dancing. During that time I went to see Calle 13 in concert and I had to stay perfectly in place or experience more pain than I already had. It was a hard task. Calle 13’s band is amazing! They had three percussionists and a horn section. Residente and Vistante of Calle 13 are step-brothers and they had their kid sister (P-13) as a their back-up singer. She looks like a b-girl but sounds like Toto La Momposina, the Afro-Colombian singer. The Calle 13 album, Residente o Visitante, is still one of my favorites of this year. I wanted to dance, even with the pain in my back, but when I tried to dance it looked odd. Imagine Frankenstein dancing to Cumbia and that is what I looked like. (My girl probably still thinks I dance like that, even when I don’t have a bad back.) I appreciated that no one laughed at me. The people at the show had class. Not what I’d expect from a Reggaeton show, but then again, this is Calle 13, one of the more intelligent groups out there.

Class is something that some people severely lack. I hate to generalize but some of the most awful displays of low class that I’ve seen have come from affluent people. People with money and success can act the most “ghetto,” as they like to call it. The funny thing is that you can’t get away with that kind of an attitude in most barrios, otherwise someone would put you in check. Last week after I finished my DJ set at Zanzibar (insert shameless self-promotion here) in Santa Monica, I sat with my lady to have a drink. There was an older gentleman that was way into the music we were playing that night. He looked like he could have been someone’s Anthropology professor. He had a little bit of an Australian outback look to him. Anyhow, he was dancing by himself, a little strangely, but harmless. A group of drunken West Side peeps came into the club during Mexican Dubweiser’s set. One Paris Hilton knock-off noticed the guy and immediately started taunting him by dancing just like him. The guy stopped dancing, perhaps conscious of the fact that she was making fun of him. I quietly fumed as I continued to watch the bitchy Paris Hilton knock-off prance around the club.

Ever eat M&Ms or Skittles and notice how they leave their coloring on your lips? Kinda like lipstick. Well, female inmates at prisons such as the Charlotte County Jail, where it's against the rules to bring in or to wear makeup, remembered this little fact and have been effectively putting it to use -- improvising with candy or food items (allowed inside prison walls) like Skittles, instant coffee, and Crystal Light to make make-up (including lipstick and eye-shadow) to look purdee. Inmates in-the-know call it "fake-up" and even at the jacked up, over-inflated prison prices for a bag of Skittles, it's still a hell of a lot cheaper than a visit to the M-A-C counter at your local MACYS!

In addition to Skittles, which mixed with hair grease makes great, long lasting lip-stick or eye-shadow, inmates also use ink pens or instant coffee to improvise as eye-liner and Crystal Light as blush. Glitter, carefully shaken off cards from inmates' families, with a little grease to hold it on makes for some festive eye-liner. "Vaseline for my lips and a little bit of coffee and Crystal Light mixed, so it's neutral," one unidentified inmate told a Florida newspaper who reported the story a couple of days ago.

This uncommon use of a common item, under-the-general-radar but common knowledge among the female prison population, has been recently uncovered by the media in light of Paris Hilton's current jail stint. Over the weekend Nicole Oliverio at the Charlotte News Herald reported the story. CNN also picked it up and ran this piece that you've gotta check out. Just click here to the link and it will pop up in a full screen video player on your computer screen.
AMOEBLOG READER FEEDBACK REQUESTED:
If you personally know of any innovative and clever MacGyver-type transformations/uses of everyday products that you would like to share, please add them to the COMMENTS box below. Meantime, check out these Skittles facts and the classic 80's Skittles TV commercial.
SKITTLES FACTS:S = The letter emblazoned on each individual colored SkittleUK = Country of origin of Skittles Czech Republic = Country manufactured by division of Mars 1974 = Year first introduced to the USA 1981 = Year production in US beganData-Sorting Teaching Tool = Use of Skittles by the University of North Carolina.Illicit Drug Smuggling = another non-intended use of bags of SkittlesTaste the rainbow of fruit flavors = Theme of the 1980's US TV advertising campaign. Hit PLAY below to view.